“Since everything is on the internet, I don’t need books…right?” Wrong. Books can be very useful for many things. Also they have much information that you can’t find on the internet or any other places. The internet is not very reliable; people could just be posting random untrue things on it. The information could be false or made up, the sources as well are not very reliable. With books you cannot lie about the sources or what the information is, it is more credible, and it is entertaining with many different genres.
There are many websites and authors on the internet; you can’t seem to keep track of them all just because everyone has access to it that has a computer. For all you know people could be making up information and just saying that it’s correct. Or they could be using random sources that are probably not even reliable to begin with. So unless the primary information came out of a book, most of it is more than likely to be false.
Credibility is very important when writing something. You want to know that the author knows what he is talking about as you read his work. When talking about research, logistics, or just information on something; if there are no sources cited then there is less credibility and its harder to rely on that work to use for a paper or essay.
Books don’t just supply us with information, they provide entertainment. Books have been around for a long time, and whether we are using them to get information, or to read a story they have a purpose. But in short not most things are not on the internet, you would need to look for books about things for credible and reliable information.
Excellent point that there are books that have information in them that you can't find on the Internet. Books have been around for thousands of years, and it will be a very long time before all of those books will be digitized so you can find them on the Internet.
ReplyDeleteYou are also correct that there is misinformation available on the Internet - but don't forget that there are many printed books and journals that also have incorrect information in them too. One difference is that we are used to picking up the clues that a book or other printed item is not crediable. We are not as well trained to judge crediablity online.
One final comment I would make is that not all information on the Internet is free. So if one doesn't have money, they might not be able to access a resource online that they could get for free at the public library.
Melissa De Santis
Deputy Director
Health Sciences Library
Univ of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus